TV Sledgehammers

I see it all the time on the home improvement shows. It's practically a ritual. First they discuss what they are going to do, then they begin the "demo". How? By picking up a sledghammer and knocking out a

4" x 5" piece of sheetrock. Next thing you know, the space is empty.

I'm curious. Is sledgehammering sheetrock into bite-size pieces and atomizing the rest into a giant cloud really the efficient way to go about this?

It seems to me that there must be a way to take out larger pieces of sheetrock rather than pulverizing it and then shoveling up the debris. How do pros typically do it?

Greg Guarino

Reply to
Greg Guarino
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Can't claim to be a pro, but having worked with a few alleged pros, they routinely grab a sledge, and knock the board into manageable-size pieces quickly. Operative word: manageable. They really don't notice mess they create- ever.

Redoing multiple rooms in my own house, I use saber-saw to cut along studs (shallow cuts to avoid cables) and cut board into relatively larger pieces to facilitate hauling out. With minimum overall dust-cloud. That dust gets _everywhere_.

HTH, J

Reply to
barry

I've done lots of drywall removal and never used a sledge. Typically, poke a fist sized hole with piece of wood, whatever, and just grab the edge of the drywall and pull. With a little working back and forth, you can get fasteners to burrow on through and fairly large pieces of drywall will come off. Not unusual to get half a sheet or so to come off in one piece.

Bill

Reply to
bill allemann

Same here. Worst room I ever done was the kitchen (10x14) in the old house I bought. Someone apparently thought they were saving money. The room was rocked in salvaged chunks of sheetrock on shiplap boards. I don't think there was one piece bigger than 12 x 18". He spent more on nails and mud than he would have on new rock. It took hours just pulling and driving the nails down flush after yanking the stuff.

Harry K

Reply to
Harry K

Using a sledgehammer is a great idea if you're doing demolition. As in taking the whole building down and it don't matter if you mess up wiring or pipes. Otherwise, I don't see how you can pound stuff and not break what's inside the walls. Stuff you have to then replace.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

I'm sure they're just flexing their muscles for a good camera shot. Besides, would YOU risk hitting a pipe, wire, gas line, live yellowjacket nest with that sledgehammer?

In the limited amount of drywall work that I've done, as in dismantling, I use a shingling hammer - hatchet on one end to punch the drywall and the hammer to finish the job if the hatchet would make too much of a mess.

Then like the others say, I use my hands to pull the drywall off.

Reply to
Eigenvector

No, actually. That's one of the reasons that I expressed the skepticism.

I have not taken down any of the walls in my house, which is just as well since they are plaster. But I have penetrated many of the surfaces: plaster interior and brick exterior walls as well as floors/ceilings. In the process I have um, "located" pipes and other obstructions more often than probability should allow.

What amazes me is when I hear that someone has actually drilled or cut through a heat or water pipe. I'm just the average weekend home handyman but I've never found it less than obvious that I've hit something. The steady "thrum" and whine of the bit cutting through wood flooring and subfloor all of a sudden becomes "bangabangabangabangabangabangabanga".

Greg Guarino

Reply to
Greg Guarino

"Greg Guarino" wrote

A friend of mine went postal after some personal problems. He fired off three shots inside his house. He hit one hot water copper pipe, one cold water copper pipe, and a run of Romex.

What are the chances of that?

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

By the standard formulas of probability I suppose you'd have to divide the surface area with sensitive stuff behind it by the total surface area of the walls, floors and ceilings of your house, yielding a pretty small probability for each shot.

But that neglects the properties of Murphy's law, which suggests that the chance is much higher. I'd like to add to the many corollaries of that law one of my own:

"The chance of something bad happening is proportional to the square of the stupidity of your action. "

Twice as stupid = FOUR times as likely. Three times as stupid? NINE times as likely. Ten times as stupid can make even the most improbable outcome a near certainty. Firing off a gun in your own house has to be in that category.

Greg Guarino

Reply to
Greg Guarino

Plaster and lathe walls are best taken down by shoving a broadsword behind the lathe and prying. If you don't have a broadsword, a 4' gooseneck crowbar works almost as well, but a swordblade is skinnier and flexes better.

You're using wimpy homeowner tools. With a real power drill, the noise changes, but it's too late to do anything about it because you're already through.

Reply to
Goedjn

Well, the odds of hitting anything are pretty low, but if you put three shots in roughly the same place, and that place happens to be a convenient spot to run 'stuff' up and down the wall, then the odds of hitting more than one thing aren't much worse than the odds of hitting the first thing.

Reply to
Goedjn

I keep mine with my chain mail suit, but my wife keeps putting them away where I can't find them. :)

For the incident that's clearest in my memory I was using a Makita

1/2" drill and a Greenlee "Naileater" auger with an extension. Another time I was using the same drill with a 3/4" x 12" masonry bit. Both hit galvanized pipe though, not some thin copper.

But I find that I can easily feel it as I go from one material into another, especially if it's say, from subfloor or brick into *air*. When that happens I back off on the muscle until I hit the next object.

Greg Guarino

Reply to
Greg Guarino

And "improbable" is never equivalent to any kind of "impossible". Improbable things do happen.

Reply to
Mark Lloyd

sledging looks great on tv, I have seen them gut perfectl;y good spaces apparently for NO reason.

Reply to
hallerb

That's all for effect. It is supposed to make them look like big tough men. The right way is to use a sawsall and cut the studs at the same time, unless of course the studs are staying. Then a regular hammer will suffice and is much easier to handle, or cut the sections between studs with sawsall.

Reply to
souperman

Chuckle. Noticed that myself, especially on some of the shows that no longer seem to be in production, or at least aren't carried around here- Hometime, or that show hosted by one the former female Hometime hosts, or Vila's Sears infomercial that he tried after TOH. The 'before' rooms, especially kitchens and bathrooms, usually looked fine to me, albeit a tad dated in some cases, and perfectly servicable. The afters are usually some trendy exercise in conspicuous consumption.

But I'm weird- I late 60s/early 70s interiors.

aem sends....

Reply to
<aemeijers

According to Greg Guarino :

Watch Holmes on Homes sometime. They punch holes if necessary, and then pull. They&#39;ll often get pieces larger than half a sheet off in one piece. Much faster and less mess to clean up.

The other reno shows use the sledgehammer stuff to add some gratuitous violence ;-)

It&#39;s incredibly annoying to see the occasional idiot take sledgehammers to perfectly good items that could be easily, more quickly, and with much less bother removed without destroying them. And resold for a few bucks or donated.

Eg: demolishing modern cabinetry with a sledge. Why? It&#39;d be faster to pull out a screwdriver and take them out. Nooo, it&#39;s so much more satisfying to take 5 times as long making a mess that will take another

5 times as long to clean up.
Reply to
Chris Lewis

You got that right. I reuse anything possible. An old kitchen cabinet makes a great tool cabinet for a garage, etc. Rather than smash studs, I cut them off just above the nails and reuse them. A 2x4 is a USEFUL item no matter what. Sledge hammers are for breaking up concrete and installing railroad spikes. I see no reason to EVER use a sledge hammer inside the house unless the cement basement floor is being replaced.

Reply to
souperman

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